My first two days...

I don't even know where to start when it comes time to explaining everything that I am experiencing...I have to admit that this is definitely life changing. 

Yesterday, we landed in Tamale and was greeted by our driver. We dumped our luggage on the back of his pick up and embarked on a adventurous drive...this 2 hour drive is one I will always remember. Dirt road for the most part...people walking in the streets with their heads carrying whatever they were transporting (water buckets, sewing machines, clothes...anything you can think of!) and their little baby attached to their back. 

Upon arriving to the Baptist Medical Centre, it was around noon....one of the busiest times there...I was shocked to see hundreds of people in line, waiting on floor near the hospital, mothers breastfeeding, kids playing....there must have been over 100 people that I was able to see inside. 

We met Holly, who gave us a nice tour of the hospital....5 adult wards, 1 maternity ward, 1 pediatric ward, 1 isolation ward, 2 theatres for surgery, 2 procedure rooms and 1 delivery room. About 125 beds, all full....patients even on the floor in order not to refuse people....who usually walk for miles to get here. Once introduced to the doctors, residents and other people volunteering there, we went for lunch. Now on the hospital grounds, there are several houses...for the doctors and their family, other doctors volunteering, our house is House 7! House 6 is where the food is at! Everyday we have a chef who makes us lunch and supper....OMG so far the food is sooo good! He will even make westernized dishes....had hamburger patties with fries yesterday! Yummy!

Once we ate, we changed and headed to the hospital to be thrown in there from Day 1! We were each assigned to someone and observed them see people in clinic. There are 2 staff ER docs from LA here, 1 resident in ER from LA and a sweet couple from the Netherlands who do Tropical Medicine. They are all very nice and really helpful! 

People basically line up and we call them one by one to come and see us once we have their chart. This is a quick process and most people come here with Malaria and so we ask a few questions and give them medication and off they go. There are lots of really sick people that we admit to the hospital for IV medication, closer follow up and because we may not be sure what they have. Most people have Malaria...but most also have typhoid, TB, snake bites, severe dehydration...list goes on. It's amazing how you learn about this back at home, but here you are experiencing it LIVE and its textbook presentations. 

On the first day...I got to see lots of patients in clinic, debrided bad wounds that some people have. Really bad infections happen here all the time. This one girl....got a bad tooth abscess that ended up spreading to her chest as a skin infection and they had to cut off all her skin on her chest including her breasts in order to get rid of this infection. We see her every 2 days to change her dressings....the amazing thing is, she always has a smile on her face and she is so brave. It's amazing to see how tough the people are out here...sometimes its scary because they wait a long time before coming to get seen. A lot of the times, they seek help from their tribes people and try some local natural medicine. 

Today...well I started off my day rounding on the pediatrics ward. There was a little boy who I saw from far and the nurse was looking after him. We went over and noticed he was non-responsive very weak pulse, fever....we changed his antibiotics and gonna check him for meningitis...by the time we came back the poor child died. This is something that happens often here...there is only so much that can be done for this kids, that you just need to accept it. Would this be different back at home? Of course it would...there would be a whole team of people trying to resuscitate him and do everything they can to keep him alive. Here...well we did that too...only thing is it's not enough. 

The rest of the day went better...tuesdays and thursdays are procedure days...so we see people for wounds, amputated a diabetic toe, debrided a bad ear infection. Also saw some interesting cases on the ward....seizing child, huge spleens everywhere, people with large livers. But everyone is doing their best here. One of the most inspiring things here is that....the family is very much involved with the care of the patient. There is always someone at the bedside watching them over, they feed them, clean them and sleep together. 

Tonight I was also on call. Basically after supper at 7, we go back to the hospital and round on the patients again to make sure that no one is getting worse and check up on the new admissions. We also had a little boy who had Typhoid fever and it affected his bowel. We brought him to the OR and found perforations in his small intestine. Oh, the OR had no scrub nurse, so along with being an assistant while we removed his intestine...I also acted as a scrub nurse. Very interesting OR experience when you are used to the way things are done back at home. They boy did very well during the surgery...however next few days will be important...they usually get bad infections no matter how clean and sterile we are here. Once the OR was done...another patient came in with an open Tib-Fib fracture...his leg was hanging on itself....he got hit by a car. I cleaned up the wound and tried my best to straighten his leg and tomorrow we will check up on him for fixation. Nothing to do now because he will probably get an infection if we close it up. 

Once we finished everything from the hospital...around 11:30pm, we go back home and try and sleep. If anything happens over night, they will usually call us or send someone over to knock on our door to come. 

We also have a school house that has access to wireless internet. So I can always come here at night and check email, skype with my parents and talk to my baby love Evs :)

It's 1:30am now...gonna head back to my house. Fun thing is that its about a 5 minute walk and you need to have a flashlight....there are snakes to watch out for and it's pitch black!

Until next time! 

Thanks for reading :)

P.S. Evie...the stars here are beautiful....wish you were here to see them with me xox